5 ms·

this is exactly the sort of idealistic post that appeals to HN and nobody else. i dont have a problem with that apart from when technologists try to take these

by swyx 2y ago

this is exactly the sort of idealistic post that appeals to HN and nobody else. i dont have a problem with that apart from when technologists try to take these "back to basics" stuff to shame the substacks and the company blogs out there that have to be more powered by economics than by personal passion. its -obvious- things are mostly "better"/can be less "annoying" when money/resources are not a concern. i too would like to spend all my time in a world with no scarcity. the engineering challenge is finding alignments where "better for reader" overlaps with "better for writer" - as google did with doubleclick back in the day.

imoreno 2y ago
To me, it seems like basically everything on this page is both better for reader and better for writer. Which ones are not, in your opinion?
- lolinder 2y ago
  All the tracking stuff is better for advertisers than going without, and most writers are paid by advertisers. So transitively it would be reasonable to say that tracking is good for writers and bad for readers.
  - imoreno 2y ago
    People oversell this tracking/advertising. It's not a goldmine for every site. For this blog, if she wanted to include analytics into her decision about what content to produce, does she really need super high resolution stuff like where people moved their mouse? Would she ever make a significant income from these "ads", or selling the data for possibly pennies? Besides, just google analytics or something like that wouldn't be that bad (I know the blog author would disagree). A lot of sites go nuts and have like 20 different trackers that probably track the same things. People just tack stuff on, YAGNI be damned, that's a big part of the problem and it's a net drain on both parties.
    - arkh 2y ago
      > just google analytics or something like that wouldn't be that bad Google Analytics is the worse. Not on an individual website but by the fact it is almost everywhere. So Google has been getting everyone's web history since more than a decade. Add Android, gmail, the social "share" or "login with" integrations and any Stasi member would have called you delirious for thinking this kind of surveillance apparatus was possible. Even more that people would willingly accept it.
MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
The author isn't trying to profit from the reader's attention; it's just a personal blog. An ad-based business would. Neither is right or wrong, but the latter is distinctly annoying.
- NotYourLawyer 2y ago
  Ad-based businesses are indeed wrong and immoral.
  - StressedDev 2y ago
    Ad-based businesses exist because a lot of people (including many on this forum) refuse to pay for anything. During the late 1990s/early 2000s, people hated paying for anything and demanded that everything on the Internet should be free. Well, that led to the vast surveillance machine which powers Google, Facebook, and every ad-tech business out there. They need surveillance because it lets them serve more relevant ads and more relevant ads make more money. The bottom line is if you hate ad-based businesses, start paying for things.
    - NotYourLawyer 2y ago
      Yes, it’s the individuals’ fault. Google, FB, and the rest need to spy on us! I feel just awful for those poor companies. No. If your business model requires you to do evil things, your business should not exist. Anyway, I do pay for services that provide value. I was a paying Kagi customer until recently, for example (not thrilled with the direction things are going there now though).
      - Dweller1622 2y ago
        What is the direction that things are going at Kagi now? What were they before?
        NotYourLawyer 2y ago
matheusmoreira 2y ago
This actually appeals to everyone. There are words and people can read them. It literally just works. With zero friction. This is peak engineering. It's how the web is supposed to work. It is objectively better. For everyone. Everyone except advertisers. The only problem to be solved here is the fact advertisers are the ones paying the people who make web pages. They're the ones distorting the web into engagement maximizing content consumption platforms like television.
- fragmede 2y ago
  The words are nice and all, but it's no https://ciechanow.ski/ https://ciechanow.ski/
  - skydhash 2y ago
    The nice thing about your example is that it works even in eww (emacs), and quite well (not the JS part, of course).
jmathai 2y ago
Most people don't remember, and some have never experienced, the Internet before it became a money grab. I think a lot of people outside of HN would prefer that Internet way more than what we have now.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  The Web has been a money grab since Netscape was went public in 1995. My first for pay project was enhancing a Gopher server in 1993.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jmathai 2y ago
    Some people making money on the Internet is a lot different than what the Internet has become today - and what I meant by money grab.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      You do remember the entire dot com boom and bust, the punch the monkey banner ads, X11 pop under ads, etc? Don’t romanticize the early internet.
      - layer8 2y ago
        I lived through the early internet, and by and large you didn’t come across much page-view monetization or engagement-maximization tactics.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        What do you call banner ads?
        jmathai 2y ago
StressedDev 2y ago
Substack's UI is fairly minimal and does not appear to have many anti-patterns. My only complaint is that it is not easy to see just the people I am subscribed to.
- ghssds 2y ago
  Substack disable zooming on mobile and I hate it.
  - arrowsmith 2y ago
    Really? I can still zoom in and out in the normal way on a Substack article on Safari and iOS. What did they disable exactly?
    - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
      I see the zoom-breaking on android. I also see the top and bottom dick bars, a newsletter popup on every article, and links opening in new windows.
- nayuki 2y ago
  Substack fails on several points for me. On the first or second page view of any particular blog, the platform likes to greet you with a modal dialog to subscribe to the newsletter, and you have to find and click the "No thanks" text to continue. Once you're on a page with text content, the header bar disappears when you scroll downward but reappears when you scroll upward. I scroll a lot - in both directions - because I skim and jump around, not reading in a rigidly linear way. My scrolling behavior is perfectly fine on static/traditional pages. It interacts badly with Substack's "smart" header bar, whose animation constantly grabs my attention, and also it hides the text at the top of the page - which might be the very text I wanted to read if it wasn't being covered up by the "smart" header bar.
- bandrami 2y ago
  Doesn't substack nag you to log in? That's a non-starter for me
SPBS 2y ago
> appeals to HN and nobody else Your argument is that writers do this because of "economics", but to the detriment of readers. I don't see how this extends only to HN readers. It applies to all readers in general.
carlosjobim 2y ago
Let's be real. If you have a website were you are trying to sell something to your page visitors (not ad clicks or referral links), then each of these annoyances and hurdles increase the risk that a potential customer backs out of it. If you give great customer service, you get great customers – and they don't mind paying a premium. If you're coercing customers, then you get bad customers – and they are much more likely to give you trouble later. Most business owners are your run of the mill dimwits, because we live in a global feudal economic system – and owning a business doesn't mean you are great at sales or have any special knowledge in your business domain. It usually just means you got an inheritance or that you have the social standing to be granted a loan.
fancyfredbot 2y ago
I mostly agree with this. Commercial websites probably should track engagement and try to increase it. They should probably use secure http. They probably should not care about supporting browsers without JS. If they need sign in then signing in with Google is useful. There's no harm in having buttons to share on social media if that will help you commercially. Where I think the post hits on something real is the horrible UI patterns. Those floating bars, weird scroll windows, moving elements that follow you around the site. I don't believe these have been AB tested and shown to increase engagement. Those things are going to lose you customers. I genuinely don't understand why people do this.

by swyx 2y ago

imoreno 2y ago

To me, it seems like basically everything on this page is both better for reader and better for writer. Which ones are not, in your opinion?

lolinder 2y ago
All the tracking stuff is better for advertisers than going without, and most writers are paid by advertisers. So transitively it would be reasonable to say that tracking is good for writers and bad for readers.
- imoreno 2y ago
  People oversell this tracking/advertising. It's not a goldmine for every site. For this blog, if she wanted to include analytics into her decision about what content to produce, does she really need super high resolution stuff like where people moved their mouse? Would she ever make a significant income from these "ads", or selling the data for possibly pennies? Besides, just google analytics or something like that wouldn't be that bad (I know the blog author would disagree). A lot of sites go nuts and have like 20 different trackers that probably track the same things. People just tack stuff on, YAGNI be damned, that's a big part of the problem and it's a net drain on both parties.
  - arkh 2y ago
    > just google analytics or something like that wouldn't be that bad Google Analytics is the worse. Not on an individual website but by the fact it is almost everywhere. So Google has been getting everyone's web history since more than a decade. Add Android, gmail, the social "share" or "login with" integrations and any Stasi member would have called you delirious for thinking this kind of surveillance apparatus was possible. Even more that people would willingly accept it.

MathMonkeyMan 2y ago

The author isn't trying to profit from the reader's attention; it's just a personal blog. An ad-based business would. Neither is right or wrong, but the latter is distinctly annoying.

NotYourLawyer 2y ago
Ad-based businesses are indeed wrong and immoral.
- StressedDev 2y ago
  Ad-based businesses exist because a lot of people (including many on this forum) refuse to pay for anything. During the late 1990s/early 2000s, people hated paying for anything and demanded that everything on the Internet should be free. Well, that led to the vast surveillance machine which powers Google, Facebook, and every ad-tech business out there. They need surveillance because it lets them serve more relevant ads and more relevant ads make more money. The bottom line is if you hate ad-based businesses, start paying for things.
  - NotYourLawyer 2y ago
    Yes, it’s the individuals’ fault. Google, FB, and the rest need to spy on us! I feel just awful for those poor companies. No. If your business model requires you to do evil things, your business should not exist. Anyway, I do pay for services that provide value. I was a paying Kagi customer until recently, for example (not thrilled with the direction things are going there now though).
    - Dweller1622 2y ago
      What is the direction that things are going at Kagi now? What were they before?
      - NotYourLawyer 2y ago

matheusmoreira 2y ago

This actually appeals to everyone. There are words and people can read them. It literally just works. With zero friction. This is peak engineering. It's how the web is supposed to work. It is objectively better. For everyone. Everyone except advertisers. The only problem to be solved here is the fact advertisers are the ones paying the people who make web pages. They're the ones distorting the web into engagement maximizing content consumption platforms like television.

fragmede 2y ago
The words are nice and all, but it's no https://ciechanow.ski/ https://ciechanow.ski/
- skydhash 2y ago
  The nice thing about your example is that it works even in eww (emacs), and quite well (not the JS part, of course).

jmathai 2y ago

Most people don't remember, and some have never experienced, the Internet before it became a money grab. I think a lot of people outside of HN would prefer that Internet way more than what we have now.

scarface_74 2y ago
The Web has been a money grab since Netscape was went public in 1995. My first for pay project was enhancing a Gopher server in 1993.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jmathai 2y ago
  Some people making money on the Internet is a lot different than what the Internet has become today - and what I meant by money grab.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    You do remember the entire dot com boom and bust, the punch the monkey banner ads, X11 pop under ads, etc? Don’t romanticize the early internet.
    - layer8 2y ago
      I lived through the early internet, and by and large you didn’t come across much page-view monetization or engagement-maximization tactics.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        What do you call banner ads?
        jmathai 2y ago

StressedDev 2y ago

Substack's UI is fairly minimal and does not appear to have many anti-patterns. My only complaint is that it is not easy to see just the people I am subscribed to.

ghssds 2y ago
Substack disable zooming on mobile and I hate it.
- arrowsmith 2y ago
  Really? I can still zoom in and out in the normal way on a Substack article on Safari and iOS. What did they disable exactly?
  - oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
    I see the zoom-breaking on android. I also see the top and bottom dick bars, a newsletter popup on every article, and links opening in new windows.
nayuki 2y ago
Substack fails on several points for me. On the first or second page view of any particular blog, the platform likes to greet you with a modal dialog to subscribe to the newsletter, and you have to find and click the "No thanks" text to continue. Once you're on a page with text content, the header bar disappears when you scroll downward but reappears when you scroll upward. I scroll a lot - in both directions - because I skim and jump around, not reading in a rigidly linear way. My scrolling behavior is perfectly fine on static/traditional pages. It interacts badly with Substack's "smart" header bar, whose animation constantly grabs my attention, and also it hides the text at the top of the page - which might be the very text I wanted to read if it wasn't being covered up by the "smart" header bar.
bandrami 2y ago
Doesn't substack nag you to log in? That's a non-starter for me

SPBS 2y ago

> appeals to HN and nobody else Your argument is that writers do this because of "economics", but to the detriment of readers. I don't see how this extends only to HN readers. It applies to all readers in general.

carlosjobim 2y ago

Let's be real. If you have a website were you are trying to sell something to your page visitors (not ad clicks or referral links), then each of these annoyances and hurdles increase the risk that a potential customer backs out of it. If you give great customer service, you get great customers – and they don't mind paying a premium. If you're coercing customers, then you get bad customers – and they are much more likely to give you trouble later. Most business owners are your run of the mill dimwits, because we live in a global feudal economic system – and owning a business doesn't mean you are great at sales or have any special knowledge in your business domain. It usually just means you got an inheritance or that you have the social standing to be granted a loan.

fancyfredbot 2y ago

I mostly agree with this. Commercial websites probably should track engagement and try to increase it. They should probably use secure http. They probably should not care about supporting browsers without JS. If they need sign in then signing in with Google is useful. There's no harm in having buttons to share on social media if that will help you commercially. Where I think the post hits on something real is the horrible UI patterns. Those floating bars, weird scroll windows, moving elements that follow you around the site. I don't believe these have been AB tested and shown to increase engagement. Those things are going to lose you customers. I genuinely don't understand why people do this.